


Habits

by Reivalk



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I want to show you I care but you won't let me and that's frustrating: The Fic, M/M, Nagging, Secret-Keeping, Some angst, nail-biting, sleep-talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-03 00:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8689990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reivalk/pseuds/Reivalk
Summary: Sometimes, noticing somebody's habits can give you more questions than answers. Early Philanthropy.





	1. One Step Back

**Author's Note:**

> Augh okay so a few things - 1. This is my first ever actual fic, I'm really more of an academic writer rather than fiction and that might... show a bit....!  
> 2\. This first chapter is a bit bumpy in terms of pacing but I think it gets the message across, even though I lumped all the introspection at the end rather than sprinkled it throughout. Chapter 2 will be better with that.  
> Otasune kills me every single day, when will I be released from OTP hell?

Hal noticed that David talked in his sleep.

He had only noticed when he and David had begun to actively take on missions and travel around the country, where most of their living arrangements required them to sleep either in the same room or in two rooms that were much closer together than they were in his prior short stay at David’s cabin in Alaska. If they did sleep in separate rooms now, security reasons necessitated that they keep both their bedroom doors open so as to be able to hear any possible intruders or threats.

Hal’s sleep schedule often meant that David went to bed before him. At this time, The nature of Philanthropy’s paperwork shifted. During the evening, both of its members poured over documents strewn across the dining room table (David hated reading off a screen). Having a second set of eyes made it much easier to catch suspicious info. If a company raised enough alarm bells to need infiltration, they talked each other through possible courses of action, David scratching hastily upon coffee-stained floor plans with a pencil while Hal’s caffeinated fingers flew across his keyboard to take notes from cam footage. Inevitably, which State Philanthropy would flee to was discussed if the mission was serious enough to involve an actual Metal Gear; An explosion made law enforcement much more twitchy than a couple unconscious guards and mysteriously wiped computers.

At night once David went to bed, the paperwork became entirely digital and focused on Hal programming viruses to collect and wipe data, pushing his way past security systems, and getting a third opinion from Mei-Ling, who easily understood his hacker’s jargon instead of calling it “nerd shit”.

It was this time that he had noticed the indistinct muttering that characterized the soldier’s habit of sleep-talking. Hal usually couldn’t make out what David was saying because he was too far away, but sometimes words or phrases came through, usually nonsensical ones.

Once, he heard David clearly say “I need to water the cactus,” punctuating his statement with a rattling snore. Hal had to clamp his hands over his mouth and press hard as he wheezed. The idea that Dave was dreaming about such a domestic thing nearly killed him with laughter. The morning after when he arose to Dave making breakfast, he casually asked if he had any dreams. David paused over the fumes of sizzling sausage and knitted his brows in thought.

“Don’t think so,” He said. “I don’t remember. Why?” Hal smiled behind the rim of his coffee cup.

“Just making conversation.”

Later that week, Hal went and humored himself further by buying a small cactus, placing it on the windowsill behind the kitchen sink. David snorted when he saw it, and asked if that was the first plant he had touched in his life. Hal brushed off the teasing and excused it as an impulse buy.

The cactus needed watering once a week, and on the third week, the day before their next mission and a planned move-out, Hal caught Dave leaning over the sink, watering it, and had to hold on to the doorway for balance as he exploded into laughter. The soldier looked flustered at his partner’s guffawing and hastily tossed the pot back on the windowsill.

“What’s so funny? I’m just watering it ‘cause we’re gonna leave it behind.” David turned around and crossed his arms, leaning back against the sink. Hal managed to stop laughing as he entered the room.

“I bought that cactus because I heard you talking in your sleep about one. You said you wanted to water it.”

“… I talk in my sleep?”

“Yeah!” Hal said, surprised. “Frequently, like at least a couple times a week. You didn’t know?”

David stared at him in silence for a bit too long, and Hal’s smile slowly dropped.

“What, did I say something?” He hastily asked, thinking about going back to the doorway where the distance made him safer. David snapped out of whatever he was in at his words and uncrossed his arms.

“No. I just never knew that. Didn’t think I was the type.”

Hal almost didn’t notice the small, red crescents on his partner’s bicep as he moved to go to the fridge, leaving the freshly watered cactus in view. He blinked.

“Are you nervous about the mission or something?”

David snorted as he grabbed some orange juice and fished for a glass in the cabinet.

“Are you kidding me? All I’m doing is blowing up a storage unit with parts in it, there’s little risk in that.” He poured and took a sip, looking at Hal over the rim of the glass. “Well, little risk to being seen, anyway. What do you hear me talk about in my sleep?”

“Not a lot. You mostly just mumble. The cactus statement was the clearest one I’ve heard so far.”

Hal almost didn’t notice the way his shoulders relaxed after his answer.

“That’s damn embarrassing,” David’s voice echoed as he spoke into his cup, tilting his head back to finish his OJ.

Feeling vaguely uncomfortable, Hal picked at his fingernails and glanced at the rug. “You really do seem tense. Is everything alright?” He ventured.

David gave him a blank expression before reaching around him to drop the cup in the sink. Hal quickly stepped sideways and watched as his partner turned on the tap and poured soap onto a sponge.  
“I already told you, Otacon. I’m fine.” He rasped, looking at the cactus.

Hal tried not to think too much about the awkward ending of that conversation. He pushed it out of his mind a few hours later once Hal Emmerich gave way to Otacon, who drove Snake to their drop-off point then focused intently on disabling the compound’s security cameras. Snake arrived at the compound, tranqed a couple of guards and broke into their target warehouse before walking around its interior, placing C-4. Otacon took many screenshots through his nanomachines’ visual feed of all the Metal Gear parts and queued them to upload anonymously to select spots on the internet later. (No secure connections out here, no way.) Snake left and began to sprint around the compound and back to the van, detonating the C-4 on the way. Despite being very far, the explosion rattled the 2 computer monitors on the card table. Otacon got back into the driver’s seat and rolled down the passenger window.

Exactly 1 minute and 15 seconds later, Snake suddenly vaulted in, panting at him to drive, And Otacon gunned the engine and raced them back to their soon-to-be abandoned apartment, everything packed in boxes and ready to go. He heard firetruck sirens wail as he and Snake lifted them into the Van.

The cactus stayed behind.

They were far outside the city’s perimeter before they finally relaxed, sinking into their seats with relief and laughing amid a post-mission high. Philanthropy was a well-oiled machine. They were the best there was. Everything seemed to be going very well with the skilled partnership and mostly awkward friendship between the two.

Everything, Hal mused as Dave went to go change out of his sneaking suit. Except opening up to each other. The mission high began to fade as he anxiously picked at his cuticles, left hand gripping the steering wheel. Sure, there was plenty of easy banter and surface knowledge of favorite foods and movies, but as time went on, his attempts to know more about the soldier on a personal level were frequently brushed off.

The reason behind David’s strange reaction to his sleep-talking? That was just another secret that he would never want to talk about. Everything that Hal learned about his partner simply brought about more questions that the soldier refused to answer.

Hal felt pathetic. He wanted, so badly, to have a meaningful relationship with somebody. But It just so happened that the receiving party of his nascent people skills was about as open as a brick wall.

He snapped out of his reverie at a sharp sting of pain. He glanced at his hands to see that he’d torn a strip of skin off the side of his forefinger. Hal sighed and stuck the digit in his mouth as he tried to shake off looming pessimism. David appeared and plopped back down on the passenger seat, dressed in a shirt and jeans. A can of coke was shoved in front of his face before he took his finger out of his mouth and grabbed it, giving David a weak smile that was, mercifully, returned in full. Hal tried to ignore the leap his heart gave, and failed. Maybe progress between them would be small, slow steps like this. At least they were friends. Not close friends (or anything more), but friends.

David was indeed a brick wall, but he definitely had a couple of cracks. Hal hoped hard that things between them would improve over time.

Disappointment twisted in his chest when he noticed that David’s bedroom door in their new apartment was now kept closed.


	2. Two Steps Foward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, I've had this monster in draft since at least mid-November and had lost a lot of motivation to finish it, but then January rolls around and I promised myself I would have this done in time for Snot Week and lo and behold! :D
> 
> This chapter is a doozy, it's around 3 times longer than the first one and contains lots and lots of dialogue and awkwardness and misunderstandings. Yum yum, misunderstandings. My favorite.
> 
> Enjoy! <3
> 
> p.s: I would like to know if I didn't include enough dialogue attributes, like "he said". I wanted to avoid using those too frequently but I might have overdone it. Let me know if it is unclear who is speaking.

David noticed that Hal picked at his nails.

He already had seen him rotate through the same few habits - Bouncing his leg while he worked at his laptop, stopping typing to pop his fingers one at a time, or pushing his glasses up his face even when they had never slipped down his nose. Hal practically never exercised, so David figured that those habits were all a substitute to release the excess energy that the engineer had at any given time of day or night, no matter how little sleep he got or how few meals he ate.

Hal picking at his nails was new and different, and David didn’t like it. This was not done while he was at his laptop but instead at practically all other times, which included whenever they were talking to each other. David would have to try to keep his eyes on Hal’s face and pretend that he wasn’t noticing as Hal gradually became rougher and more insistent with tearing at his finger beds until he stopped and began to press them against the hem of his shirt, which is when David knew that he had made them bleed. It was horribly distracting and unpleasant to watch, and worst of all, it was self-destructive. David knew from experience that self-destructive habits like that were the result of a stressor.

Although whatever was stressing Hal out was technically none of his business. He had no right to try to insert himself in somebody’s personal life like that without them asking. But it didn’t mean that he couldn’t try to make Hal aware of what he was doing.   


 

David decided to bring it up one night while they were eating dinner. 

"Otacon, your hands look pretty bad. What have you been doing to them?" He mused as he speared a couple of peas with his fork.

David made note of how Hal thinned his lips and squared his shoulders before answering.

“I guess it’s just a bad habit. You know how we all have those.” Hal smirked as he tilted his head towards David’s ashtray which was sitting on a counter on the other side of the room.

David felt the corners of his lips twitch upwards. “Touché. But,” He pointed at Hal’s right hand with his fork. “I’m asking because your thumb is bleeding.”

Hal paused and released his knife to grimace at his thumb.

“Eugh. It is. Um. Let me…-” Hal pushed his chair out and went to the bathroom where David heard the toilet paper roll clunk against its plastic holder. A minute later Hal came back and sat down, pressing a small folded square of paper against his thumb.

"It's not really a big deal, you know. I can stop." Hal said as he resumed cutting into his chicken.

David almost wanted to ask what Hal was stressed out about but decided against it and gave his friend the benefit of the doubt.

"You should."

 

That conversation had done little to ease his worries. David kept telling himself that he shouldn’t care  _ this _ much about some dumb habit but after a night of thinking it over he decided that no, he actually does care a lot, and Hal needed to be aware of that whether he liked it or not. But before he nagged Hal further, David needed to have a more concrete reason to do so besides “I don’t like it”, and It was pretty easy to come up with one.

An opportunity arrived a couple of days later when he spied Hal on the couch, sitting cross-legged while a laptop balanced on his pale ankles played an episode of one of his shows. He didn’t have to look at Hal from the front to know what that particular motion of his right elbow and occasional wince of pain meant. David quickly reached over the back of the couch and Hal gave a surprised yell as his wrist was yanked into the air. He whipped around to stare at the soldier who returned his gaze with equal intensity.

“What was that for?!”

“You know.”

A few beats of silence passed before Hal conceded.

“Alright alright, sorry. Now, may I have my arm back?” He asked flatly, wiggling his raw fingers for emphasis. David felt the tendons of Hal’s wrist shift underneath his palm with the movement and made himself let go before he got too distracted.

“I need you to quit doing that, Otacon. It’s a tactical disadvantage.”

“A tactical disadvantage? Seriously?”

"Yeah... Doesn't typing and doing shit quickly on your computer get harder when your fingers are all shredded up like this?”

Hal turned away and stared at his hands.

“Not only that, but you aren't letting them heal. You might get an infection." David added, waiting anxiously for a response from his morose partner. Receiving none, he quashed down his irritation and gently rapped Hal on the shoulder with his knuckles before walking away.

“Just saying.”

David chose to ignore the barest mumble of “I guess.” that came from the couch.

 

It was hard to not be pissed off in turn by Hal’s irritated resistance. David couldn’t help but be reminded of how he handled things when Meryl had caught onto his alcoholism (which was made worse with the whole “I’m a clone, not a real person” thing). It was one of a few reasons why she ended things. The fallout was difficult and lonely and made it harder than ever to stave off of liquor, but David had thrown himself into quitting with abandon by aggressively pursuing other things, like amateur boxing. (He always won. To be fair his mere existence was kind of cheating.) By the time Hal knocked on his door 3 months later, the smell was gone, his blinding headaches were long since Advil’ed into submission, and the engineer was none the wiser. Shadow Moses may have taken a big, shitty bite out of his psyche, but it more than made up for it in boosting his motivation to change.

Shadow Moses also gave him Hal, who was his only friend despite their clashing personalities. But Hal was being  _ difficult _ right now and that was reminding David of himself, and that definitely was not a good thing. Their apartment was not big enough for  _ two _ moody bastards.

He wanted to help Hal in a more substantial way that wasn’t just telling him to stop, so he dug through his medicine cabinet until he found them - Band Aids. David took the unopened box and put it on the engineer’s desk, on top of his closed laptop. He hoped the message would be clear. In a weird way he felt like this was analogous to Hal getting the cactus in their previous apartment. Maybe (hopefully) he would actually catch Hal putting on the bandaids at some point.

He didn’t.

David tried hard not to let that frustrate him. He already knew that the Engineer never slowed his pace, never flinched from pain while typing with raw fingers. But he just hated seeing such self-injury, especially when he had no idea what was causing it. It felt like he was reaching out to Hal, offering him help in the most dignified way he could, and Hal was snubbing him on  _ purpose _ . 

So David did what He usually did when his efforts weren’t producing results.

Try harder.

 

It was movie night, and he and Hal were watching a James Bond flick, a movie choice that began as a joking suggestion but gradually turned into a serious trip to Blockbuster and back, with both of them laughing at the cheesiness and inaccuracies of Hollywood espionage over beer and a box of pizza. The pizza was almost gone, the movie half-over, and they were both a few beers in.

“Otacon.”

“Mm?”Hal answered thickly through a mouthful of pizza.

“Where’d you put the bandaids I gave you?”

“The…?” Hal swallowed his pizza and looked at his plate. ”Oh. Um. They’re on my desk.”

“You haven’t touched them at all?” David glanced at his partner as he lowered the volume on the TV a few notches.

“No! I have. I’ve been putting them on. Sometimes. A couple of times. I just don’t like how … constricting they are.”

“I’ll be back.” David got up and left, hearing Hal go “huh?” as he made his way to his partner’s room.

He had to look a bit before he found the band-aid box shoved on its side in the corner while a big stack of manila folders (probably manufacturer history) took center stage of Hal’s desk. David opened the box and frowned at its contents.

He left the room and plopped back down next to Hal on the couch, and reached over with his palm up while making a quick  _ come here _ gesture.

“I need your hand.” Hal frowned and instead reached for the band-aid box.

“I can put them on myself-”

“-But you haven’t been.” David quickly pushed back on Hal’s shoulder and held the box away to keep him from reaching further. “There’s only two missing. You’ve had this box for a week.” Hal gave up and leaned back to his spot, giving him a stony look.

“Dave, I don’t want to talk about this  _ again _ . You’re not my mother, you know.”

“I don’t care. just give me your hand.”

Hal tensed slightly and avoided David’s eyes as he slowly extended his arm, before realizing that he couldn’t reach far enough without leaning and reluctantly scooted closer, his pink face turned downward. 

David took his partner’s hand in his own. Hal’s hands were spidery and his fingers were longer and more tapered than David’s square digits. It was soft, just like his wrist. Or at least, the underside of his hand was. All of the skin around his fingernails was agitated and peeling and David felt like the rough flakiness had no business interrupting such softness.

Thankfully that entire thought process only took about a second before David remembered what he was doing and set Hal’s hand palm up on his knee. He shook a band-aid out of the box and unwrapped it, its paper crinkling against the dialogue of the movie.

He began to loop the band-aid around Hal’s pinky. Hal cleared his throat and reached for the remote with his unoccupied hand, and the movie’s volume increased slightly.

 

David glanced over at his friend to find him hunched over crossed legs. A line was knit between his brows and his jaw was set, and altogether he just looked miserable.

“What’s the matter? You’re acting like it’s the end of the world.”

“Why are you doing this? Why do you care so much?” 

“Because you are my Tech, and I cannot have my Tech typing on his keyboard with mangled fucking hands.” David tried, already knowing that Hal was still perfectly capable.

“Tactical disadvantage, I get it.” Hal snorted, steel emerging in his voice. He tugged his hand out of David’s grasp.

David irately tossed the box of bandaids onto the coffee table. “Well what, what else do you want me to say, Hal? Alright, fine, how about this - I know a nervous habit when I see one, and with the way you’ve been shredding your hands to pieces and moping around the house, something is clearly bothering you.”

“I’m fine, Dave.”

David wasn’t going to believe Hal’s carefully measured tone for a second. A small voice in his head observed that  _ he was being given a taste of his own medicine _ , but he shoved it away.

He leaned forward and poked a finger into Hal’s chest. 

“Normally, I wouldn’t make you tell me why you’re upset. But since I’m your partner, I have the right to ask - Does this have to do with Philanthropy? Are you afraid for your safety? Or-” David leaned back and crossed his arms. “Did you fuck up covering our tracks and not tell me?” 

Hal raised his eyebrows.

“No! Well, sort of-”

David felt his blood run cold as he straightened in alarm. “ _ Otacon-! _ ”

Hal immediately raised his hands and shook them in a  _ no _ motion. “-Not  _ that _ ! I never mess up! Our security is rock solid, you know this!”

David wearily slumped back against the couch and pushed his bangs back.

“Don’t fucking scare me like that…” He glanced back at him. “...So then what, do you want out?”

“No!”

Silence fell as David waited for Hal to elaborate further. He held his gaze for a few seconds before Hal looked to the side. No answer came, and the noise of the movie failed to make the atmosphere any less heavy. David frustratedly jammed his finger on the remote’s  _ mute _ button.

“I’m not gonna sit here and play twenty questions with you. If this has to do with us,  _ I need to know _ .”

Hal thumbed the bandages.

“I think you don’t like me.” He stated simply.

That genuinely caught David by surprise. What does he  _ mean _ he thinks ‘David doesn’t like him’? What has he been doing to Hal besides maybe being kind of naggy? They were just snickering over Pussy Galore’s name not even twenty minutes ago, and Hal thinks he doesn’t  _ like _ him?

Here he is  _ bandaging his partner’s hands _ , and  _ Hal thinks he doesn’t like him _ ?

David remembered that he had to speak aloud. 

“You...  _ that’s _ what you’re so worried about?”

Hal definitely wasn't looking at him.

So that was it. Another relationship in jeopardy because David was completely shit with people.

 

David sighed and picked back up the box of band-aids, and turned it over in his hands. “Otacon, I wouldn’t have agreed to work with you if I didn’t like you. I wouldn’t live with you if I didn’t enjoy your company.”  _ I wouldn’t have offered to bandage your hands.  _ He mentally added. “Why do you think that?”

It was almost a minute before Hal answered.

“It’s not that I don’t see what you do for me, David. I do. But you never like to tell me about yourself or about what’s bothering you, and that makes me feel like you don’t think I deserve to know. Like I’m just another subordinate who only works with Snake, not-.... Not you.”

Where the hell did this reasoning even  _ come _ from?

“Hal, How was I supposed to know to do that? It’s not like  _ you’ve _ told me much about yourself!” David felt a corner of the box give way under his thumb, which had apparently been pressing too hard.

“And why do you think that is?” Hal shot back. “Any time you notice my problems, you only seem to care about whether Otacon is negatively affected. Not me!” Hal gestured towards the dented band-aid box his partner was holding. “You do nice things for me but then you keep me at arm's-length at the same time! It’s confusing!”

A wave of realization washed over David as he recalled how Hal had immediately closed up after the Cactus Incident. That was also exactly the time when he began to shred his fingers. Hal had probably been bottling up his concerns about this ever since they formed Philanthropy, but that moment when David tried and failed to hide his anxiety at his sleep talking Had simply created too much stress for Hal to properly hide.

David  _ himself  _ was the stressor behind Hal’s nervous habit. He felt frustration begin to simmer in his chest. This wasn't fair. He hadn’t even known that he was doing anything wrong!

“Has it never occurred to you that I would have problems with being close to people? I’m a fucking  _ tool _ , Otacon, and people tend to  _ use _ me like one after earning my trust!” He realized he was raising his voice, and sat back and folded his arms. “Then they throw me away afterwards.” He added quietly.

Hal stared at him with a wounded expression. “Do you seriously think  _ I _ would betray you?”

David gave a single humorless laugh. “Of course not. I’m not  _ that _ stupid, but don’t you think that after all I’ve been through I wouldn’t be at least  _ hesitant _ to tell you shit about myself?”

He looked back over but Hal was avoiding his gaze entirely by this point.

“Otacon…?”

“I don’t know. This was a bad idea, I’m sorry-” Hal said as he hastily got up to leave.

Without thinking, David reached over and grabbed at the sleeve of his sweater, and tugged hard enough to send him tipping on one leg.

“No, hang on a second. We’re not done.” He said sternly.

Hal sat down, looking miserable. David wanted to hit himself when he suddenly realized that he was just making it seem like this was Hal’s own fault that he was feeling this way. Hal was the one who was upset in the first place, and being so defensive did nothing but steer the conversation away from where it needed to be.

Fuck. David  _ really _ needed to stop being so moody. It kept driving people away.

He tried to rectify the situation and pulled a band-aid out of the box and motioned for Hal’s hand again, which he gave.

 

“Look. I don’t act the way I do because I don’t like you, okay? It-...” David tried to search for a better answer and failed. He gave a frustrated grunt. “...Why would you want to know about me anyway? Nothing that I could tell you could possibly be redeeming.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I just want for you to share something about yourself with me. I want to know that you trust me, outside of the field.”

David was trying really,  _ really _ hard not to feel cornered. He knew Hal couldn’t help but seek trust. Thankfully an easy truth soon came to mind. 

“You’re one of what used to be five people on this planet who know my real name. With Master Miller and Fox dead, That number is now three.”

Hal raised his eyebrows, then looked to the side and nodded.

“That’s true,” He said.

“I don’t think my past is worth much by comparison.” David continued. “It’s all just one big sob story that I’m tired of thinking about, and I don’t want our relationship to carry that weight.” He turned to look at Hal. “We’ve created new lives for ourselves now, why dwell on what was?”

Silence fell between them. David went back to bandaging Hal’s middle finger and moved to his pointer, which was in the worst shape.

 

Hal gave a heavy sigh. “It’s just…. I’m sorry. I understand that you have your own way of dealing with things. I’m trying to force you to do things my way and it’s making you uncomfortable. I’ll stop.”

David shook his head before staring at Hal’s hand in his own. “You’re not making me uncomfortable, Hal. I can be a jerk without realizing it.” He murmured as he gently pressed his thumbs into the center of his partner’s palm and rolled them back and forth.

Hal gave a start and shot him a wide-eyed glance. David felt his stomach drop and immediately released his hand. Well,  _ that _ was a mistake. He scrambled for something to say.

“A-ahh… That wasn’t-”

“No, It’s okay.” Hal cut him off, and drew his hand back. He brought his legs up to himself and rested his chin on his knees with a completely unreadable expression. David sat back and glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck. God, he was stupid.

He must have looked pretty bad because Hal tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Really.” David looked at Hal’s smile and shrugged, embarrassed.

“How do you want to fix this, though?” David asked.

‘How can I help you feel better?’ would have been a far better way to word it, but going with his gut wasn’t exactly proving successful right now.

“I don’t really know, Dave,” Hal said as he turned back towards the muted television screen.“I just wanted to talk about it, that’s all.”

David was a man of actions, not words. Even though he knew he was refusing to talk about himself to Hal, it didn't mean that he didn't like his partner. He liked him. A lot. He just never really knew how to show it much less tell it, or when, or how  _ much _ . It’s like every time he tried he either came off too distant or too… close.

Of course there was a solution, though. Saying “I care about you” would be so easy. It was the truth, it would probably make Hal really happy, and could help fix this problem.

But it could just as easily weird him out. David couldn't make himself do it, especially not after seeing Hal’s reaction to him being affectionate.

This was too hard. Everything was awkward. It was time to be a coward and let the conversation drop. Hal could pick it back up later, whenever he wanted.

So David said nothing more and un-muted the movie.

 

Time passed and the tension in the air between them gradually dissipated until It was barely noticeable. The conversation wasn’t finished, but the moment was over.

 

Hal suddenly gave a soft laugh. David looked at him, eyebrows raised, to find the engineer smiling with his chin in hand.

“We both have shitty people skills, don’t we?” Hal said. David smirked and reached for his semi-forgotten bottle of lukewarm beer. 

“Heh. Unfortunately. I was hoping one of us could balance the other out.”

“Theoretically, it should be you. You’re much closer to being James Bond than I am.” David glanced at Hal as he took a drink before setting the bottle back down.

“I’m not a spy, Otacon, I’m an infiltrator. My specialty needs a lot fewer people skills. Though,” he gave his arms a stretch and laced his fingers behind his head. “I have them where it counts. Women love me.” That was mostly true. Somewhat. 

Hal gave a noncommittal “Mmm” before sitting up and leaning towards the soldier with a broad smile that David hadn’t seen in weeks. His brain had a hard time coming up with words that weren’t “radiant”.

“Which is why Meryl left, right?”

Never mind. “Evil” was a much better term.

David quickly matched his smile and spent about half a second coming up with how to make this scrawny nerd say _uncle_. Without breaking eye contact, he picked up the pillow under his arm and slammed it into Hal’s face. Hal gave a muffled squawk then grinned as he shoved it back against David’s arm with his foot.

“I’m just saying. You’re not as smooth as you think you are, Dave.”

“Meryl just didn’t like what a moody bastard I turned out to be, you asshole- _ oof _ .” He grasped at the pillow that a giggling Hal pushed at his face and whipped it back in a neat arc against the Engineer’s head, which messed up his hair and sent glasses clattering to the floor. Hal broke into laughter as David advanced on him, shrinking back into the corner of the couch and raising his cushion in front of his face to protect himself.

“You, on the other hand...” David gave a feral grin as he raised to his knees above hal, tore his shield-cushion out of his hands, and whacked him repeatedly. “Can’t-...get-...  _ enough _ of me!”

Hal managed a chorus of “stop, okay, I’m sorry!” among his laughing fit as he tried to block David’s assault with his arms. David finished by shoving the cushion into his face again, then slumped back against his side of the couch, chuckling as his partner got a hold of himself and picked back up his glasses.

Hal was still giggling as he spoke again.

“You’re wrong, I would never date somebody who can’t handle the facts.”

_ oh _ .

David’s brain nearly short-circuited at the word ‘date’ but he managed to collect his thoughts in time for a retort.

“That’s why you do most of the fact-handling. As you just witnessed, I’m far better at subduing people who spread lies.” David patted his pillow for emphasis, which made Hal break into laughter again, and David knew that somewhere among all his fumbling with their partnership, he was probably doing something right if he could hear Hal laugh.

 

They rewound the parts of the movie they missed while talking and watched it from there. David fought to keep the smile off his face when he saw Hal pick up the box of band-aids and begin bandaging his other hand’s fingers.

 

\------

David was half asleep when he heard a soft knock at his door (3 knocks, pause, 2 knocks, pause, 3) Recognizing the safety pattern they always used when entering their apartment, He groaned out a  _ come in _ . 

David heard Hal’s voice say “Hey,” followed by a soft  _ thunk _ which he assumed was the sound of the engineer’s shoulder leaning against the doorframe. He cracked open his eyes to see exactly that, and made to sit up.

“What’s wrong, Otacon?” He mumbled, roughly rubbing the crust out of his right eye.

“I just wanted to say thanks.”

“ _ Now _ ?”

“It’s not  _ that _ late.”

Of course it wouldn’t be “that” late. Hal stayed up until 4 in the morning practically every morning. His perspective of what was “late” was complete bullshit.

David stifled a yawn. “You’re welcome.”

Hal turned to leave and David was about to let himself lean back onto the bed before he remembered something.

“Hey, wait.”

Hal popped back into view.

“Yes?”

“I’ll tell you stuff soon, okay? About myself.”

“O-oh? You don’t have to.”

David lowered himself onto the bed and shut his eyes. “Too bad. Want to. Just, not now, or tomorrow.”

There was a pause before he heard Hal answer.

“Okay. I will too.” There was the definite sound of a smile in his voice.

“Great, now leave. Lemme sleep.” David grumbled, already at his sappiness limits for the night. He didn’t want to  _ notice things _ anymore, because it made his heart far too light when he still wasn’t really sure how Hal felt about him. He wasn’t really sure of anything, to be honest.

But it wasn’t the bad kind of unsure.

He heard Hal leave but the draft told him the door was left open.

 

David briefly considered getting up to close it, but decided that he didn’t need to. A familiar, warm feeling stirred in his chest as he turned over and went back to sleep.


End file.
